


anuna (I wanted sex, not question marks)

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drunk Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pegging, Spitroasting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you've kissed (or for that matter, fucked, said “I love you” to, been sweet to) someone without meaning, how do you make it mean something the next time?</p><p>(Or, boys in postmodern relationships attempt to redefine them.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	anuna (I wanted sex, not question marks)

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S THREE AM WHY DO I ALWAYS DO THIS FUCK
> 
> Fun fact: I'm the worst at naming things—documents, fics, what have you. My old Hetalia fic folder had filenames like hfdbwk.pages and this one was indeed named anuna.pages because it was the fourth rewrite (I preserved the others for posterity because I did like how some things in the previous drafts turned out haha) and 'anuna' in Filipino is a very hopeless, almost taunting kind of 'what now?' statement, more or less used for impasses and tricky situations. I thought it was fitting for the story, so there.
> 
> ANYWAY I just have to come out and say it!!!! I think this fic is ugly? Nevertheless, I did try to add some kind of aesthetic element to it, not just in its form but in its phrasing, and I've learned that what's beautiful for me isn't necessarily the same for you because you and I are coming from two totally different sensibilities, so I'm still putting this up in the hope that someone else finds it beautiful? I'm happy with how it turned out but it's been a struggle, no matter how fun it was and how it pushed me to try something new as a writer
> 
> Also, I really am trying to veer away from the smut, just because I want people to take me seriously lol I feel that the smut automatically gets in the way of it being beautiful from the sheer scandal of the kinks I want to write and from how unpolished and raw my writing style is compared to others and how both those compound into something… terrible (both good and bad connotations, I guess) I do have fics where it's the focus or the means by which the story progresses, but for stories like this one, and my subsequent ones, it'd be nice to explore new themes in a different, yet hopefully still extra way, haha. (I also have this fear that my smut is becoming monotonous lol)
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this!! The fic caught me at a bad time, when I felt like dropping all of this, so it started out of spite (which was why I trashed the original drafts; they were too pretentious, even for my elitist ass lmao), but ended up being something I really liked writing, despite how ugly I think it is. I hope you guys have fun reading this as much as I had fun writing it. <3
> 
> thanks so much to AO3 users PrinceCameron and loserhoshi and heybaobei and oownow for keeping me company during my long hiatus! you guys deserve everything
> 
> dedicated to AO3 user chaeries, who prompted this and is my favourite sooncheol delulu. I miss you huhu you're the cutest thing I stg
> 
> and to AO3 user seungkwanin, though the date may not be exact, happy [retches] monthsary [vomits]. I love you.

**princess and the condom**

I feel like his housewife, the useless one that observes while he does all the useful shit. Right now he’s doing laundry, ironing and sorting out and folding his clothes while his used bedsheets tumble around in the dryer. I point at the collar he misses and to watch out for his hand, which is definitely the minimality of my usefulness, but he clicks his tongue and says he can’t live without me, so—

“Do you wanna baptise those?” I ask, pointing at the dryer that just shut off, my legs swinging off the edge of the counter I sat on. I grin at him and he frowns at me.

“I just washed those,” Seungcheol grumbles.

“So?” I hop off the counter and help him unload, dumping the sheets into a laundry basket with a breath of warm air kissing our faces. He fucking hates the warmth. It’s hot inside and out, and I get it. Maybe I should be the one kissing his face instead so he stops frowning. “We can do it on Josh’s bed.”

“He’s gonna run out of holy water cleaning up after us,” he teases. For all that Bible study, choir shit, Josh Hong keeps his condoms and lube in the same drawer as his Bible and rosary, which I think is fucking amazing. Make love. Spread love.

“Is that a yes?” I press.

Seungcheol ends up laughing instead.

“You’re not saying no,” I add. Seungcheol just laughs even more, going red all the way up to his ears. He laughs when he can’t answer properly, when he knows something will incriminate him. I break out into a grin, too, and punch his shoulder. “So you want to fuck on Josh’s bed,” I say. He’s still giggling when he lifts up the laundry basket full of bedsheets and pillowcases and carries it over to where his clothes are.

“Josh and I made a bet about that,” Seungcheol explains when he’s stopped laughing so much. “He said you were gonna invite me to have sex on his bed.”

“And?”

“Well, I’m not gonna say yeah, you know? We bet money.” As if Josh ever worried about money a day in his damn life; he just wants his own sheets clean.

“I’ll pay for it,” I offer.

Seungcheol grins up at me, which I take as a go signal. “You’re filthy,” he tells me. I just wink at him.

“You’re slow as fuck,” I counter as I tidy up Seungcheol’s clothes and carefully pile them on the laundry basket, then we both lumber back to his room like pregnant women. He gets there before I do, and he pulls me in almost comically, his clothes spilling out of the laundry basket.

I get pulled up by the collar for a kiss, my hands on automatic as they reach for the hem of his shirt and pull upwards, brushing against warm skin and the down of hair on his stomach. That’s as tender as tender gets until Seungcheol gets my pants pooling around my ankles and yanks me out of them and onto the bed.

“No foreplay?” I tease.

“You got that evening lecture, right?” Operations research. Fuck me, I didn’t want to go and the thought of me having a night class completely slipped my mind. “You don’t wanna be late,” Seungcheol adds with a grin.

“Suck my dick,” I growl, “and get those off.” I tug at his pants until he shimmies out of them and kicks them off to the floor. Josh is conscious of his bed; the mattress is soft and the bedsheets are cottony and nearing a point of silkiness. Seungcheol puts his mouth on me, and I inhale the scent of Josh’s shampoo from the pillow as it surrounds my head.

Seungcheol’s always a little too eager beaver-esque; he likes the drooling and slurping thing, likes sucking on the head for an obscenely long time. I feel like he wants me to feel everything and nothing so it all lasts a little longer. My toes curl into the bedsheets anyway. My fingertips tingle when they graze on his scalp.

“Cheol.”

“Mm?” It comes out garbled and full of dick and I end up laughing.

“What time is it?”

“Time for you to fuck me,” he says smoothly as he sits up and wipes his mouth.

I laugh even harder; he’d make such a fucking good pornstar, I don’t know why he’s trying to go into the academe. “What the fuck,” I say as I nudge his thigh with my foot. “Does Josh have anything?”

“He ran out yesterday,” Seungcheol answers, then gets up and digs through his own drawers for lube and a condom.

“Does he lend them out?”

“You really think he doesn’t get laid?” Seungcheol comes back and makes me get up so he can lie down, keeping his knees hiked up and spread open. I crawl between his legs and squeeze some lube out of the tube onto my fingers. 

“It’s not that I don’t think Josh is incapable,” I say. I circle the tip of my finger around his entrance and push in without much comment. “Just—I thought his Catholic guilt would cockblock him.”

“Why the fuck are we talking about Josh right now?” Seungcheol demands. I slip in another finger, his demand dissolving into a groan.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask.

“Did you read Junhui’s piece from the lit folio?”

“So from your roommate to mine?” I note with another finger fucking him open. “Which one? The one with the umbrella cover?” I think that was last semester’s… We both just pick up a copy when Junhui tells us to.

“The new one. It’s some kinda hologram bullshit.”

“Oh. No.” I pull out, roll on the condom, position myself. “How was it?”

“He’s getting more depraved,” Seungcheol says with a low laugh, the warmth of it on the tip of my nose, “but what’s surprising is that the presence of the other is more felt this time.”

“You know he asked me if he could write about us?” I tell him, rolling my hips into him until his back arches up. He loops his arms behind my shoulders to pull me closer. I’m getting cross-eyed trying to meet his damn eyes.

“Yeah?” Seungcheol gasps after I go harder. “What did you tell him?”

“I asked him if he stopped getting laid.”

“He got offended,” Seungcheol says.

I snort. “Of course he did.” He laughs at that until I reach down to jack him off. “It’s Jihoon’s birthday tomorrow.”

“Fuck,” Seungcheol growls. “Got no gift.”

“Cash in an envelope works,” I joke. “I got him an iTunes gift card.” Seungcheol snorts at that. I let go of his dick and place my hands on top of his head.I think I’m gonna come; I thrust into him a little harder. “What?”

“Nothing,” he gasps. “I was thinking about getting him one.”

“Two’s better than one,” I say then bury my head into the crook of his neck, breathing in the smell of his sweat and a faint hint of perfume. “Fuck.” He groans with me, low and rumbling and right in my damn ear. When I think I can move, I suck him off and let him come down my throat, his nails scratching my scalp.

“Jesus,” he breathes.

I get up and wipe my mouth, tossing the condom in the general direction of the trash can. “The sheets are still clean; let’s just make the bed.”

Seungcheol looks at me with a wide grin. “You didn’t wanna pay either, did you?”

I wink. “Fuck yeah.”

 

 

 

**a fragment from Junhui Wen’s ‘Consider Fluidity’**

_The moment she wraps her legs around my waist, I feel nothing. The water’s warmer around my cock and she’s moaning in my ear, both indicators of something happening that I’m supposed to notice, but I doubt she’s feeling something I’m not. I drag my hand sluggishly down her back, cupping the small of it. She moans again and, unbidden, a moan comes out from me, too. I call her pretty and murmur it in her ear like I mean it. She claws at my back but I only feel the sting of chlorinated water piercing my skin._

_It’s a little past two am. She drags me underwater to steal a kiss. The pool lights make her soft and hazy; the frame of hair around her face make her perfect, her skin ghostly white yet warm. You kiss anyone in the right lighting and you think you’re in love. Her lips meet mine. I taste the water rushing in my mouth._

 

 

 

**if scrooge had enough friends for a dinner**

Jihoonie doesn’t know how to be a millennial. He’s allergic to restaurants with mason jars and free-range organic roasted chicken with glazed carrots and whipped potatoes. He celebrates birthdays at TGI Friday’s like he’s twelve.

“Should’ve gone for Hooters,” Jeonghan tells him. Jihoon gives him a scowl, a pat on the back, and a request to maximise the unlimited appetisers.

Seungcheol and I find seats, and I end up beside a guy whose nostrils flare when he laughs.

“I’m Seokmin,” he says with an extended hand that has its fingers clipped together like he glued them shut as a kid and let it dry before his mum can wash it off. 

When I take it, the tension melts away. “Soonyoung,” I tell him, and his eyes crinkle shut as he smiles at me—kinda cute, in the only way freshmen are. Junhui shares a look with me then grins before ducking his head back down to talk in Mandarin to someone who just echoes everything he says with a disinterested ‘ah’. Fuck Junhui Wen.

“Mozzarella sticks,” Seungcheol asks, “or potato skins?”

“Both,” Mingyu says as he plops his ass right down next to Seungcheol. He reeks of some tutti frutti vape shit. Sweat is staining the fringes of his sweatshirt and he drags it away from him, his other hand fanning his face. “He should’ve gone for Hooters.”

Jihoon sits beside me and outright fucking glares at Mingyu. “You’re such an ass, and it’s my birthday. You all should be kissing mine.”

“What ass?” The mere mention gets Junhui’s head snapping up and his tone drawling. “You just have an implication of one.” Seungcheol and I snicker before it gets out of hand. “If you’re talking about action, implications don’t necessitate it, and your insistence is arbitrary at best. Meaningless,” Junhui finishes, and Jihoon just stares at him for that.

“What?”

Junhui rolls his eyes hard enough for them to pop out after getting a glimpse of heaven. “Why should I kiss your ass if it’s not in my face?”

“Do you want it to be?” Jihoon snarls. I laugh when Junhui leans back into his seat and smacks his lips at Jihoon.

“You asked for it,” I say, patting Jihoon on the back.

“Shut up.”

I face Junhui and end up noticing for the first time the person he’s been fixated with since we got here—scrawny, strong eyes, a mouth good enough to spill profanities. If he ain’t smart enough— “This isn’t your CW class, bruh.”

“He never fucking stops,” the scrawny kid grouses in a voice that I’m glad is so stereotypically his.

“Minghao,” Mingyu warns, “dude, that guy is a waste of fucking time.”

“What the fuck,” Junhui complains.

Seungcheol raises his hand to call for their orders and I catch him taking a look at the guy as well, his upswept brown hair and a nose that overwhelms. “Gyu’s right,” he tells Minghao. “Junhui’s like…” His face twists as he finds the words. “He’s the type to, like, eat beef brisket noodle soup of your back, write about it, then never call.”

“If you’re a shit lay,” Wonwoo pipes up from Jihoon’s other side, “he’ll make sure the whole world knows.”

“Think Taylor Swift as an essayist,” Josh offers. 

“What the fuck,” Junhui complains again.

Jihoon says, “I bet by the time Junhui’s a senior, the only ones who’d let him fuck them are freshmen who don’t know anything.”

Junhui looks indignant, but he teases Minghao, “Did I scare you?” Minghao shrugs, and that’s probably the best go signal Junhui Wen’s ever gotten, but I just had to butt in—

“What happened to your ‘don’t touch the freshmen’ rule?” I ask.

“All at once,” Junhui sighs, “you make me sound like a man of principle and a man who doesn’t believe in them.” He clicks his tongue at me and adds, “You should be more helpful.”

“Hao’s not into guys,” Mingyu stresses. Cute. “None of us here are into guys except you.” Even fucking cuter.

Seungcheol meets my eyes and lets out a small snort, which I laugh quietly about. I watch his face turn from knowing to pleasant as a waitress comes and echoes Seungcheol’s orders off her notepad.

“Fuck you, guys,” Jihoon growls, then orders a bottle of tequila and ten shot glasses.

 

 

 

**fake Catholic schoolgirls**

The adage goes: the best way to ensure that your kids won’t turn out Catholic is to send them to Catholic school. It’s true—Nayoung Im is making out with Seungcheol on his bed, a black bra hugging her pale skin, hair falling past her shoulders to curl over her breasts. He wraps an arm around her back and presses her flush against him, the other hand cupping the back of her neck as he lowers his head to suck on the taut skin of her neck, and she moans, loud and clear.

I kick away her cute Sunday school dress or whatever (I forgot what she was wearing when she came in, but it’s white and radiant on the dirty as fuck floor) and join them on the bed. Her shoulders are slim and firm, the shell of her ear tender where she used to have a piercing before her mom told her it made her ugly and had her remove it before she yanked it out herself, and she pulls away to look at me with big eyes and a swollen mouth.

They share a look. He grins, and she swings her legs off his lap and stands up, leaving me to look at Seungcheol’s red, red mouth and pink cheeks, hair that’s been combed through with slender fingers and tugged on.

“She wants to watch us make out,” Seungcheol surmises.

I roll my eyes and smile. “Fine,” I say as I replace Nayoung on Seungcheol’s lap. Every girl at some point must have wanted to watch boys kiss—it defines sexuality as much as thongs and red lipstick, just thrilling enough for their skin to hum. I tell him, “Let’s make it good,” before looping my arms around his shoulders and kissing him languidly, tongue reaching out in the sloppiest make-out session of the century.

She can’t take her eyes off of us; I can feel her gaze boring into me when Seungcheol tries to get me to grind against his hips, when he latches his mouth on my neck and sucks until he knows it’s just about to break. Her face is behaved schoolgirl-schooled, prim and proper and _interested_ , the hot pink strap-on bouncing on her lap.

“Do you like it?” I ask.

“Should I leave you two alone?” she teases. Then, she tosses the bottle of lube beside her to me and says, “You prep.”

“Why me?”

Her fingernails are Instagrammer long, studded and pastel pink. My ass hurts just looking at them, and I wince involuntarily. She rolls her eyes. “Yeah,” she sighs.

“What are you gonna do until he’s ready?”

Nayoung gets up, so we can switch positions, then smoothes her hands over Seungcheol’s chest, fingers drumming on the fabric of his shirt. “Can I sit on your face?” she asks coyly. Seungcheol must be staring at her like a dumb dog, even as she slips his shirt over his head and I tug down his pants to his ankles and toss them far enough that they land on Josh’s bed, but he nods and lets out a nervous giggle, holds her hand as she eases herself down onto his eager mouth and I spread his legs open.

If he let out a groan when I slicked up a finger and inched it inside him, it was muffled by her vagina. He curls his arms around her thighs like she’s a damn barbell and brings her even closer to his mouth. A moan escapes Nayoung’s mouth and she reaches her hands forward, flat on his stomach to keep herself steady. 

“He’s really cute,” Nayoung admits.

I shrug, but I tell her, “Of course he is.”

“How did you guys end up being fuck buddies?”

The honest story makes me laugh. “He came out last year but never even touched a guy,” I answer. Nayoung’s eyebrows shoot up, so I continue. “I used to date someone that everyone in the team knew, so it wasn’t a huge secret or anything. He just came up to me and literally asked me to fuck him in the ass. It was… convenient.”

Nayoung laughs, a light peal of laughter that surprises. “I can imagine,” she says, shaking her head. “I always wanted a dick.”

“For the blowjobs?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Fucking worth it,” I tell her, though she’s busy grinding down on Seungcheol’s mouth, the sounds obscene, slick and wet, loud slurping like Seungcheol just arrived at an oasis. I’ve got three fingers in, and Seungcheol’s thighs are quivering just as much as Nayoung’s when her orgasm hits her and she lets out a shout, chest heaving and head thrown back.

“ _That_ was fucking worth it,” she gasps with a loud laugh. She’s riding it out until she feels like getting off, sitting instead on the foot of the bed with her thighs on either side of Seungcheol’s head. He’s looking up at her as if she’s the Not-So-Virgin Mary, _beaming_ with his vagina-slicked mouth and shiny chin. “Is he ready?” she asks while she coos at him and strokes his hair.

“Yeah.” I pull away and trade places with Nayoung once more. I make Seungcheol flip over, and he lays his smug, satisfied face on my thigh while I’m mesmerised by the contrast of hot pink with Seungcheol’s tan skin, the delicate fingers with their manicure wrapped around the strap-on as they guide it inside him. Nayoung’s other hand is curled around Seungcheol’s waist, nails digging in slightly.

It must feel different for Seungcheol. He gasps, hot air on my dick, like he hasn’t in a while, before bursting out into giggles.

“How is it?” I ask him.

“Cold,” he hisses back, eyes wrinkling at the corners from how wide his smile is.

“Is your mouth tired?” Seungcheol shakes his head no, so I guide him by the hair to my dick, which he starts sucking on right away.

“See?” Nayoung grouses with a pout. I can’t fault her because I can’t feel my toes whenever he does this thing like he’s licking a soft serve cone but in a good way, tongue digging into my slit. He whimpers around me when I tangle my fingers in his hair and pull.

“Wouldn’t eating out feel the same?” I muster. Probably not. Nayoung rolls her eyes. She pulls out and inches slowly back inside. “You can go harder.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Seungcheol groans, and Nayoung ends up giggling.

“Has he always been like this?” she asks fondly. 

“Like what?” I ask. I stroke his hair; it’s coarse and a little dry, but I love doing it anyway.

Nayoung thinks on it for a while. “Eager,” she finally says. Then: “Open.”

“Not always,” I admit with a laugh. “Our first time together was the other way around.”

“Really?” She leans forward, hands roaming the broad expanse of his back, and coos in his ear, “Then you wanted him to fuck you?” Seungcheol groans around my dick, and I’m this close to coming in his mouth and down his throat, tugging on his hair until warmth floods his scalp. “You liked it when he filled you up?”

“Jack him off,” I suggest. When Nayoung reaches a hand down to stroke Seungcheol’s dick, he starts breaking into whimpers, pulling off me with a pop and a pout as he rests his head on my thigh, a string of saliva trailing from his bottom lip until he licks it off with a swipe of his tongue.

“Come on my face,” Seungcheol breathes. Without thinking, I start touching myself then gently guide his head back to my crotch. He comes with a cry on Nayoung’s fingers and quick, shallow thrusts, and that tips me over the edge, too; Seungcheol’s face is covered with streaks of come when I’m done, some of it dripping from his lashes, and I feel bad about that one, like he could get blind just because he wanted a facial, so I wipe it off with my thumb until he’s as good and clean as it can get then cup his face with both hands and kiss him.

Nayoung pulls out gently, the damn thing still bobbing between her legs. Seungcheol helps her out of them with a shy smile and trembling fingers, a kiss to the junction between her neck and shoulder and an offer to eat her out. She sits on Josh’s bed with her legs spread open, and he kneels right between them, getting to work while I tear out the sheets with their mess of drying and cooling spunk and lie down on the bare bed.

She hooks her legs over his shoulders and crosses them at the ankle, heels digging into his back and fingers latching on his hair, urging him to go deeper. He groans into her, the sound muffled and satisfyingly wet. When she comes, it’s with a light laugh, refreshing to the ears, and it mingles with Seungcheol’s low, rumbly one when he pulls away and feels the tremors of her thighs around him.

 

 

 

**a confession**

It expectedly comes unexpected, at a time when all I wanted from Seungcheol was solid warmth while I curled up against him with readings for a creative writing class I ended up taking as a free elective. He explodes with a soft energy, a quiet excitement. He says, “I like her” without ado.

“Who’s ‘her’?” I tease, though I know he means Nayoung just from the way she resonates, hot pink dildo and flushed, rounded cheeks.

“Nayoung,” Seungcheol says in singsong, humming happily while he highlights something in the PDF on his iPad.

I roll my eyes. He sounds silly, a boy in love celebratory. They’ve been hanging out; she curls her foot around his leg when they grab coffee at the nearby Starbucks, he brings her to those fancy “gourmet” dessert shops some blocks away and dots whipped cream on her nose. “Are you gonna ask her out?”

He shrugs and plays with his toes. “I want to, but I don’t know if she wants romance or thrill,” he admits.

I want to roll my eyes so hard that they pop out of my face. “Don’t date her if you don’t know,” I say simply, as if it were that simple. Seungcheol’s not infatuated with enigmas; he’s just a fucking idiot.

“I want to ask her out at the library.”

I snort. “Romantic.” The loveseats against the windows tinted to prevent the sun’s glare are cast in the glowing, hazy, dreamlike light of the day pouring into the glass. It’ll be so good how Seungcheol could wrap his arm around her and ask so sweetly. She’ll say yes, smile Catholic schoolgirl-demurely, and hold his hand. It’ll be so fucking good it’s hard to refuse.

“Fuck, Soonyoung,” Seungcheol growls, “are you even fucking listening?”

“No,” I answer honestly, “but whatever it is, it’s a good plan.”

Seungcheol huffs then breaks out into a smile that deepens his dimples. He pats my head to bring it to rest on his shoulder. “I’m gonna miss this, though,” he says quietly.

“It doesn’t have to stop,” I say, feeling like I’m in fucking _Titanic_ —seasick and cheesy, Celine Dion’s damn song playing in the background. If he didn’t burst out laughing, I’d have to go with Junhui back to China and never come back.

“You’re gonna miss me,” he taunts, then kisses my hair. “It’ll have to stop sometime, you know? We gotta stop messing around.”

 

 

 

**2boys1joint**

This is how Wonwoo and I are similar: we both want the same thing from Junhui. I thought Junhui would get along just fine with a blowjob in exchange for a gram or two of weed, but money is money and sex is sex, and Wonwoo is only interested in the warm money in Junhui's pocket.

But that doesn't stop Junhui from trying to fuck him. He finds Wonwoo attractive the same way everyone else does—he reeks of mystery; his voice is deep enough to pull something from the earth. Today, Wonwoo drops off a Ziploc of joints at the room, and Junhui languidly rises from his bed to open the door. It's not even a kiss on the cheek today. He just deposits a bill on Wonwoo's palm then asks him about his chapbook, congratulates him on it and for snagging one of the best design majors to make the cover for him.

“You're…” I begin as soon as Junhui closes the door.

“I'm what?” Junhui prompts. He immediately lights one and I make grabby motions for it.

“That freshman got you fucked up enough that you forgot about Wonwoo?”

Junhui lets out a laugh then sucks in a breath through his teeth, saying as he exhales, “It's cheap if I keep going after Wonwoo.”

Not like that ever stopped him. Junhui Wen thinks sex has no value other than how good it is at the moment it's done. “That kid fucked you up,” I express again, my lips pulling back into a grin. He scowls at me. “That's amazing, honestly.”

“What is?”

“Some kid made you rethink your entire life purpose.”

Junhui takes another hit before passing the blunt on to me. He exhales, smoke coming out like tendrils past his lips. “I want to prove him wrong,” he says finally. “You know what that fucking kid told me?”

“No,” I deadpan. I take a hit, blow out the smoke, cradle my head on the pillow, then pass. “What did he say?”

“He said my life must be really boring.”

Fuck Junnie, honestly. The kid’s on to something. I let out a loud laugh until Junhui gets me shutting up again.

“When are you gonna tell Seungcheol you like him, huh?” he asks.

“Fuck that,” I tell him. Junhui passes the blunt back to me but I don’t want it anymore. “I just like fucking him.”

“Is he that good?” He looks almost incredulous.

I shake my head. “Not that he’s good, even if he is. It just feels right.”

“Listen,” Junhui says. “That’s an indicator of something. You fucking like him, not the other way around.” After a while, after noticing how I hadn’t said anything, he adds, “I could be wrong.”

“Yeah,” I say a little weakly. I’m starving but I suddenly feel like vomiting.

“Are you pissed you can’t fuck him anymore?” Junhui asks. “Or are you pissed he’s with that girl?”

“He told her we were fucking,” I grumble. “Like, when she asked if they could fuck.”

“You know what that means?” Junhui tells me with a wide grin. “He silently thought you guys were exclusive.”

If I weren’t already lying down, I would. Instead, I flop on my stomach and look at Junhui properly, how he’s curled up with a book and the blunt between his fingers and how both are ignored and wilting away. Fucking exclusive. That’s not how fuck buddies work. Like everything else in his life, Seungcheol has it all backwards.

“Should I ask him?” I wonder aloud.

“Why not?”

“It totally ruins the casualness of things,” I answer.

Junhui shakes his head. “I don’t think he does casual.”

“And he’s getting something from her he couldn’t get from me? That it?”

“What would that be?”

“Feelings.”

The snort Junhui lets out is fucking godless. It’s derisive, loud, and mean. What an asshole. “She has no feelings.” Fuck. He points at me then says, “You have more feelings for him than she does.” Fuck.

“Don’t do this to me,” I groan, burying my head in the pillow.

His tone becomes more patient, less teasing. “You really didn’t see this coming?”

Who enters anything thinking love will come out of it? “No,” I answer plainly. I’m fucked. I tell Junhui as much and he just laughs, inhales again through his teeth. Love is fine if I intended it, but this makes me want to set myself on fire.

“Hey,” Junhui says after a while of silence and the faint sound of him taking another hit, “things are gonna work out.” He better be right.

 

 

 

**a fragment from Junhui Wen’s ‘The Shenzhen Mistress’**

_She speaks to me a familiar language in an accent I don’t get, drawling and deliberating over her words in a way that’s unlike her son’s careless and rambling gait. It’s refreshing to hear. She places a cup of tea on the table—just one, just for me, as if she’s gauging my etiquette._

_He stands behind her, hands folded in front of him. A good boy, a learned boy. She talks to me and I answer in the only way I know how to be impressive, with the conspicuous intent of wanting her to like me. The room smells like star anise and cloves, so I compliment her on her cooking. She did a good job raising her son, making him brutally honest until it hurts. Her dress is lovely—is it silk? The cut makes her neck graceful._

_From him, I get a smile and a nod._

_I take a sip of tea, and the taste surprises in the same way discovering a new artist that’s good enough to stay surprises. It’s a signal of my break with the tendency towards the rote and the familiar._

_She notices my face, which must have been everything but nondescript, and laughs with the tinkling of bells. “Xiao Jun-ah,” she tells me patiently, in a small voice with her hand patting my own, “that’s just oolong from the supermarket.”_

 

 

 

**Chinese takeaway**

Come spring semester, Junhui Wen is prolific. There is a new folder in his writing files, nothing worthy yet, but all waiting to be polished. He flies into the room and tosses a small booklet at me then calls Wonwoo to come and to bring beer. Wonwoo is kind enough to bring mid-tier canned beer.

“You _met_ his _mom_ ,” I say incredulously, after I read through the piece, which was finally published somewhere that isn’t the school’s lit folio, and it’s damn good and publishable—beautiful, even, a kind of graceful beauty Junhui Wen can muster.

“I didn’t.”

“So this is fiction?”

Junhui sighs. “His mom’s all the way in Beijing, so we… Skyped.”

“Kinda cool how you grounded the encounter into something concrete for the senses,” Wonwoo notes as he flips through it again. “Did he finally allow you to write this?”

“…Not really.”

Wonwoo breaks out into a laugh and pops open another can of beer for all of us. “Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame before he murders you,” he says, and I laugh at it, too.

“He’ll like it,” Junhui brushes him off.

“He should,” I point out. “It’s practically a confession.” Not even practically, but outright. ‘My break with the tendency towards the rote,’ my ass. Junhui picked the nicest way to say ‘He made me stop fucking around’ all on his own, no prodding needed. “You guys are practically dating, too.”

“I don’t _date_.”

“That’s why you don’t know what it’s like when it’s in your damn face,” Wonwoo remarks with another laugh, smiling widely when Junhui reaches for his beer and chugs it down.

“We’re not dating,” stresses Junhui with a slam of his can on the table. The table wobbles slightly from his pressure but maintains firmness.

I roll my eyes and tell it to him gently: “You are.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never met Seungcheol’s parents,” I say as a matter of fact, and I know that Nayoung has, know that she’s been to his perfectly manicured suburban house, know that they probably fucked with their hands over each other’s mouths to keep quiet while his parents were asleep across the hall. “Not even over fucking Skype. The kid is serious.”

It takes a while for the concept to sink into Junhui. When it finally does, his eyes go wide and he fervently shakes his head. “No,” he whispers loudly.

Wonwoo places another freshly opened can of beer into his empty hand. “Yes,” he says gently. “Now drink.”

“Cheers,” I grumble, holding out my can for toasts. “Congratulations, Junnie, you fell in love with a freshman.”

“Give him something to celebrate about,” Wonwoo tells me, then looks at Junhui. “Congrats on having sex with someone you love.”

“We’re dating,” Junhui says dumbly, disbelief making him deaf to the rest of us. He sounds like he’s in mourning.

 

 

 

**Chinese takeaway and soft serve**

The kid, Minghao, gets pliant and soft when he’s happy. Junhui loves it, spoils the shit out of him to coax every ounce of sweetness from Minghao’s body, peppers him with kisses like happy teenage virgins (Minghao’s one, but Junhui’s a long lost cause).

In the room, they curl up against each other and talk in staged whispers. Minghao pulls him in to truly whisper something in his ear that leaves Junhui wide-eyed and breaking into a fond grin, and I just know I’m getting sexiled right at that moment.

“Soonyoungie,” Junhui says, with the most demure, fake-ass virgin smile I’ve ever seen.

“No,” I deadpan and stand my ground. “I’m writing a paper.”

“Soonyoungie,” Minghao echoes.

“Use your room,” I reply in the same light and airy tone. He pouts at me, and I raise my eyebrow. “Really, kid? You want someone as tainted as Junnie to take your virginity?” Junhui looks offended, like he should be.

“I trust him,” Minghao says.

That’s a new one. I let out a soft laugh, chuckling into my hand. “Minghao, do you know what Stockholm Syndrome is?” He shakes his head. “What do you even see in him?”

Minghao has to think on it for a while. Eventually, he comes up with: “He’s charming when he wants to be, but it doesn’t feel like an act.”

Junhui looks all smug, happy enough with Minghao’s answer that he kisses him sloppily on the cheek. “See? I’m taking care of him,” he tells me with a cross of his arms. “We’ll go _slow_.”

“You sound like a cheesy porn movie,” I tell him offhandedly, returning my attention to the medical journal I’ve been trying to read the past hour.

“We’ll get rid of the ‘no sex in the room’ rule,” Junhui pleads.

“We made that rule for a reason.” And it’s not like I’m really aching to fuck someone on my bed, not even Seungcheol if he’s free.

Eventually, Minghao senses the useless volley and pipes up, “Gyu’s not in my room,” at which Junhui’s lips curl and break into a smile. He grabs Minghao’s hand and leads them out of the room, taking my stash of condoms and lube with them.

Seungcheol bumps into them on the way inside, and I turn my head just before Junhui could shoot me a glance, staring determinedly at my reading without absorbing anything just as Seungcheol flops down on his stomach next to me on the bed, his head warm against the crook of my neck when he tries to make me realise he’s present.

I lower my head to meet his and maintain an inch or so between our mouths, enough to feel his exhale on my cupid’s bow.

“Hey,” he says shyly. I’ll pretend I didn’t notice how his eyes dart down to my lips before looking at me again. He’ll pretend he didn’t see me watch him take his bottom lip into his mouth and suck on it, leaving it tender and swollen and glistening with spit.

“Hey,” I say back.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you for a while,” he says slowly and lowly, nudging my cheek with his. I feel his socked feet trying to tangle themselves with mine.

“Did you miss me?” I tease. He’s such a tease emotionally. It gets annoying when I start to pay attention to whether Seungcheol looks at anyone else’s lips the same way. (He doesn’t, but his gaze is the same intensity for everyone.) 

He nods. “I did.” His lips curl upwards, deepening his dimples.

“Wrong answer.” His earnest is always the wrong answer. He frowns at me when he realises I’m not changing my stance. I clear my throat and have to ask: “Why are you here?”

“I can’t be here anymore?” Seungcheol demands. “Or you don’t want me to be?”

“That’s not an answer to my question,” I tell him patiently.

“I’m just—”

“You guys are fighting.”

His eyebrows knit together and he looks at me like I’m stupid. “We’re not,” he tells me.

“But you guys are… cold?”

“I just want to be around a different presence for once,” Seungcheol whines, resting his head on mine again. “Soonyoung, don’t kick me out.” He sounds like a little kid, pleading and beseeching. Like this, it’s hard to ask what’s wrong, if there is any, so I just let him stay.

“Yeah,” I tell him, “okay, I won’t.” I point at my reading and add, “I’m not gonna talk to you, though.”

Seungcheol smiles so deeply at me that it looks like he’d purr if he could. “It’s fine,” he answers brightly. He watches me read, hums a bit to himself, then manages to lie down on his back in this cramped bed, lifting an arm to fiddle with locks of my hair. At some point, he gets bored enough to shift back onto his stomach and kiss me on the cheek, a quick peck with his fingers still in my hair.

I wipe off the kiss with a scowl. “What was that for?”

“Nothing,” he replies in singsong, then rests his head on my shoulder. I ruffle his hair then go back to my reading, his weight warm and sure next to mine.

 

 

 

**a fragment of Jeffrey McDaniel’s ‘** [ **The Archipelago of Kisses** ](https://bobongpilosopo.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/the-archipelago-of-kisses/) **’**

_Oh where_  
_does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile._  
_Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling._  
_Rub two warm feelings and presto—you have a kiss._  
_Now what? Don’t invite the kiss over_  
_and answer the door in your underwear. It’ll get suspicious_  
_and stare at your toes. Don’t water the kiss with whiskey._  
_It’ll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters,_  
_but in the morning it’ll be ashamed and sneak out of_  
_your body without saying good-bye,_  
_and you’ll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left  
_ _on the inside of your mouth._

 

 

**how to get banned from a high-class lounge**

Nayoung breaks up with Seungcheol before Valentine’s Day in a cruel twist of things: she finds him less endearing and more needlessly perfect and life shouldn’t work out in a way that you feel happy and like shit at the same time. 

I get dragged to an expensive bar a little farther away from campus than our usuals, where the tequila shots cost twenty-five dollars and the local shitty beer something like ten dollars a can. It’s fancy, well-lit by candles, soft crooning by a band of Filipinos centre and back.

Seungcheol gets me a glass of whiskey topped off with ginger ale before sinking into a plush armchair, his own glass cradled in his hand. “What’s wrong with me?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I reply automatically—yet also, everything. I decide to tell him. “That’s your problem.” The sip I get is light and bubbly, warm in my throat. Seungcheol downs his then orders himself another, and I cringe at how thirty dollars fly out of his pocket each time he orders one. Junhui could get him blindingly drunk for seven dollars.

“She and I are getting the same grades, though,” Seungcheol whines. I roll my eyes.

“Maybe you were being distant,” I offer, then laugh at how stupid it sounds.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Seungcheol grumbles when he realises I’m not trying to be serious. I don’t want to be serious, not when the fucking Filipino lounge singer is singing Frank Sinatra with her egg tambourine and the room is dark enough that I can only make out the high of Seungcheol’s cheeks, the slope of his nose.

“Junhui and the kid are together,” I say by way of conversation. Seungcheol snorts at that and takes another sip.

“Do they fuck in your room?”

“They fuck in his room, and it bothers Mingyu,” I tell him with a laugh and he laughs, too. “Gyu walked in on them and Junhui asked him to join.”

“Did Gyu say yes?”

“That would take a fucking miracle.” Seungcheol laughs again, orders another damn thirty-dollar highball. I settle for beer and watch his mouth loosen up into a wide smile that won’t leave.

But, really, all I’m after is going on my knees in the damn bathroom cubicle and sucking him off. It happens eventually; the bathrooms are clean and spacious with scented candles on every surface, the cubicles have platforms for purses or lines of coke, the floor is tiled marble and cool on my knees.

Seungcheol looks down at me as I unbutton his jeans, his head lolling back. “What are you doing?” he slurs.

“Showing you you’re not missing out,” I answer smoothly and finally get his dick out. It’s still limp but he lets out a hiss anyway when I suck on the head.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he exhales. I lay my tongue flat on the underside then work my way up, watching him watch me with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He’s chewing on it until it becomes tender and swollen, eyes lidded.

I go long and slow, dragging everything out to get his knee-jerk reactions. He bangs his head on the cubicle wall and groans, slips his eyes shut and tugs on my hair until I’m breathing in his smell. I let him come in my throat, gripping onto his hips until he stops shaking.

Fuck. He can’t know how much I missed making him come. I tuck him in then look up at him, expecting a grin, but his face is crumpling and it makes me sit back on my heels with an “Oh fuck, oh fuck—” and I reach for his wrists, pull him gently down until he’s settled between my legs, burying his face into the crook of my neck. I feel dampness staining my shirt. Fuck.

“She didn’t like me, did she?” Seungcheol asks. I have no idea how to answer that, so I keep quiet.

I hate it when he cries. I’ve never seen it happen before now, but I already know I fucking hate it. My ass is going numb in a strange toilet after sitting there for what feels like hours, and at some point I tell him it’s not his fault—it’s the damn truth—in the hopes he’ll feel like getting up and going home. He doesn’t. He sniffles into my collar, holds my shoulder in a firm grip.

We stumble out at dawn and promise never to come back. He’s sniffling into his shirt, smart-looking jacket draped over his arm. I bring him to a Burger King and watch him choke down fries with a sour expression.

“Hey,” I begin after a long, dead-ass silence, “you’re gonna be okay.” He looks at me with a fry in his mouth, chews, then swallows.

 

 

 

**a fragment of Junhui Wen’s ‘Transfiguring’**

_I was fifteen, and she was nearing thirteen. She waltzes into my classroom, the air buzzing and humid around us. It’s not me she approaches, but one of the girls, and she stands on her toes to whisper in her ear. If I meet her eyes, she ducks her head down. At lunch, I put my arm over her shoulder as we walk past the other classrooms to the cafeteria. She shrinks herself down, narrows her shoulders, and slips away._

_Later, I find her giggling over her chopsticks and her feet planted firmly on the floor. She sees me pass by and crosses her legs, her giggle fading out as if she pinched her mouth with her chopsticks. A pair of black shorts flashes beneath her skirt. I pretend not to notice. She doesn’t even look at me._

_I was sixteen, and my friend just hooked me up with a porn magazine. It becomes unusable within a few days. I thought of her—not of her body opening up, but of how it closed every time I approached, like a_ [ _touch-me-not_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosa_pudica) _. She must be aware of the porn magazine I got, or at least how we’ve gone from talking about adult women to talking abut the girls in our class. This girl has a tiny waist. That girl has strong calves and ugly lips._

_The scrutiny makes us all too aware of ourselves. She bought a new bra last Saturday because her breasts are growing. I pretend not to notice. She doesn’t suspect._

_I was eighteen and preparing to leave. She, sixteen and sure of herself, slings her arm into the crook made by my elbow and smiles up at me, lips shiny with gloss and lashes thick with mascara. She curses at me for messing her hair. Her skirt is shorter with lace flashing underneath._

_She sits across me at lunch and lets the toe of her shoe graze my calf. I pretend not to notice. She knows I’m pretending. She smiles and lets me scrutinise her._

_I was on the cusp of eighteen and nineteen and will be turning nineteen elsewhere. She greets me at the door of my house. She smells like fruity cologne, hairspray, and coffee. She kisses me on the cheek, then I kiss her on her mouth, making her curl into herself and slip away again. I can’t pretend not to notice. She runs where I can’t follow and waits for the sound of an airplane taking off._

 

 

 

**[Usher_–_Confessions_Part_II.mp3]**

Non-virgin Minghao is a slut, a cat in heat, horny 24/7. He wants it as long as he remains fascinated by it, and I feel like that fascination will never leave while Junhui is still fucking him, teaching him all the ways his body can open up in response to touches, words, sounds.

The denouement of their story is this: a resolution to get their own apartment and make it their private sex dungeon or whatever and a realisation that they can’t afford it. People wonder if Junhui Wen’s gotten laid recently. Mingyu acts like he’s been betrayed then asks Minghao what getting dick up his ass feels like.

Junhui tells me to spill it out, let my feelings take over my mouth. He’s happy and satisfied and wants closure for me.

I bump into Seungcheol at the fire exit of the dorm just as he’s coming up from his last class of the day. He stops in his tracks, eyes me with a smile. The rush to finals week is fucking him over; he barely has time to tie his shoes properly.

“Your shoes are untied,” I tell him by way of hello. He laughs at that, sets his books down, and plops himself down next to me on the staircase to tie his shoes, ratty red sneakers with the white toes turning grey.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” I say. I dig out a pack of cigs from my jacket pocket and a lighter. “Came down for a smoke.”

He frowns at me but plucks a cig out of the pack and uses his own lighter to light it. “Thanks,” he says in an exhale. “I ran out.”

“Fuck you,” I grumble, then light one for myself. The taste is getting tiring really quickly. I let mine burn all the way down to a nub after two quick puffs and stamp it out with my shoe.

Seungcheol watches me the whole time, savouring his own. “You’re not stressed out?” he asks. I am. I fucking am. Sleep feels like a faraway concept. Sleep feels like a dream.

“I’m running on Mountain Dew,” I tell him. 

“What’s kept you up?” 

“Lab reports…” I begin, then trail off from the sheer volume of work I have to do, like my brain is too overwhelmed to tell my mouth what’s up. Seungcheol’s looking at me, and I lick my lips, my throat going dry. This is when it’ll spill out, but what I end up saying is “Dude.” Dude. Fucking dude. He’s a dude. I’m a dude. I scoot myself closer to him and hold his hand. Fuck. This feels all nasty. My heart is going to bruise my ribcage. With my other hand, I cup his cheek then kiss him, tasting the cigarettes first before Seungcheol underneath.

I can feel the surprise, the way his mouth stiffens before kissing back, and the rhythm is something I’m used to, no feeling my way around it required, then he laughs, and I realise i have to pull away.

Seungcheol’s still laughing when he wipes his mouth from the impromptu making out. “If you wanted to make out, you shoulda said,” he tells me. He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “I always wanted to have sex by the fire exit.”

There is no convincing me that Seungcheol Choi isn’t trashy. “Is that really the first thing you thought of?” I ask quietly. It’s annoying and sad, but I don’t know why I expected him to get it. I hug my knees and stare at the floor.

He frowns, and I can hear it more than see it. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I don’t fucking know.” I exhale, rub my face, push my hair back. “I just—I thought that would go a lot easier.”

“What would?”

“The fucking movies don’t get it,” I tell him, frustration bubbling up. It tastes like bile, like food poisoning. “t’s like… fuck, how can you kiss someone you’ve kissed without meaning before and have it mean something? How the fuck do you convey that?” Seungcheol the caveman scratches his head.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? I mean, I didn’t think there was anything special about that,” he admits in a soft voice. “What did you mean?”

I swear to almighty fucking god— “I love you,” I say outright, because he doesn’t get it otherwise, because the way we were demands that we say it outright. “It’s pissing me off.”

He laughs, then says, “Me, too.”

“You’re such a dumbass,” I grouse. “I love you. I wanna be cheesy with you. I wanna fuck you ‘cause I think you’re hot even when you’ve done an all-nighter and look like a corpse like right now. I love you ’cause love is fucking blind, bruh. I wanna be your _boyfriend_. It’s been stressing me the fuck out for months—”

“You never said,” Seungcheol tells me, a little angry about getting barraged like this.

“Because you’re a fucking _moron_ ,” I tell him with a grit of my teeth, punching him on the shoulder as hard as my hands permit. “I feel so stupid right now.” I’m not going to point out how he looks like he’s going to cry again, eyes going glassy and mouth trembling like it’s on the verge of profanity.

Seungcheol catches my fist and lays it on his lap, trying to coax my fingers out of their clenched positions so my hand can lay flat right above the rip in his jeans where the knee peeks out. “I’m pissed that you didn’t say sooner,” he starts as he draws circles on my palm before lacing our hands together, “but I’m a moron that gets it now, okay?”

He reeks of rejection. I open my mouth to protest.

“I love you, too,” he says. When will he stop bothering me like this—

“Shut up,” I mumble.

“Fucking make me,” Seungcheol retaliates. “I was really waiting for a time when it would be different.”

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah, and it never came, so I was just like, it’s never gonna happen, it’s too good to be true.”

“Nayoung—”

“I like her,” Seungcheol cuts me off. “I liked her a lot and I wish things turned out different, you know?”

“Have you seen yourself when you’re smitten?” I tell him with a laugh. He looks like a deer caught in headlights or like his owner’s come home with treats or like he’s been told he’s a goner.

“Should I look in a mirror?” he teases.

“Bruh.” I shake my head, frowning at his grin. “No.”

“I love you, okay?” he says again. He must like how it feels on his tongue, inside his mouth, on his lips when he says them. “I’m still mad you didn’t tell me before.”

“Should I make it up to you?” I ask. He rolls his eyes and huffs, then smiles at me. 

“Come here,” he says but scoots closer to me instead. He brings our foreheads together, our breaths mingling, and wraps his arms around my neck, then kisses me softly, pulling away just as quickly, the noise quiet in the huge space. I reach up to cup his face and rub my thumbs over Seungcheol’scheekbones, pressing into his dimples. Our noses brush. I have to pull away because it feels different, electrifying and thrilling and satisfying and new, mouth aching from the grin set on my face. Seungcheol leans forward to kiss the grin away, grinning himself, and it’s the weirdest split second of our grins touching before it melds into a proper kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> DOES ANYONE EVER REALLY READ MY A/NS HAHAHAHA THEY'RE SO LONG-WINDED I'M SO SORRY
> 
> If you do like this fic, please don't hesitate to leave a comment. I love each and every single one I get, because they always inspire me to keep on writing. I read the comments on previous fics when I feel like not continuing anything, tbh. But, yeah, do this for every writer you love, too!! You can leave infinitely more comments than kudos, and I guarantee that they'll make anyone's day~
> 
> no longer on Twitter or Tumblr, so idk, if you want to talk to me, you gotta do it the old school way via carrier pigeon haha


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